The Ashley Jewish Homesteaders Cemetery is the only permanent physical reminder of the McIntosh County, North Dakota Jewish farming community. 1200 Jewish farmers farmed on 250 homesteads in over fifty North Dakota settlements from the late 1870's. Unlike most of their Jewish brethren who remained on or near the east coast in bigger cities, they headed to “The Great Northwest” to become farmers – boarding trains from New York to the prairie, then climbing into horse drawn buggies or walking to Ashley in ruts of ox-cart trails from the train depot at Eureka, South Dakota, “Odessa of the North.”
This Cemetery was named by the National Parks Service of the Department of the Interior to the National Historic Register on November 17, 2015, as a significant historic property, worthy of preservation. The National Parks Service cite, with a link to the Nomination can be found at www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/15000807.htm. A detailed list of people buried at the cemetery with monuments, along with pictures may be found at www.ashleyjewishcemetery.org. Thank you!